Salvage ANY Component(s) Fast and Easy. All Mounting Types. Any Pin Number.

When it comes to obtaining electronics components one either buys new ones or salvages some from old scrap devises. While buying new ones is both selective and quality wise, the pricing can become an issue for some electronics enthusiasts. Salvaging on the other hand offers used components, however, a super cheap ones (considering energy it takes to salvage them).

However, having components in scrap PC boards is one thing. Having them desoldered and ready for use is another. And so we arrive at the main problem of component salvaging, the desoldering. There's a limit to what you can desolder and furthermore the process can be tiring and time consuming. With a soldering iron, solder sucker, and a wick one can hope to desolder some basic components, and maybe some small IC's. Anything more complicated could become a frustrating nightmare. With more advanced tools such as a desoldering gun one can achieve better results, but still with much time consumed.

In this instructable I present you a method for desoldering any component(s) very fast, in massive amounts, for any mounting type, and any pin number. Furthermore desoldered components will be in good condition straight up ready to be used in your own project. The disadvantage of this method is the fact that the PC board holding the components may potentially get damaged, and damaged quite badly. So if you are looking for a way to simply desolder then this approach would simply ruin your day. This method is only for salvaging where component preservation is the objective and heavy PC board damage is expected.

Method focuses on heating the PC board up to 200C with a heating mantle (gas or electric) and removing the components like nothing is holding them. The immediate thought would be that the 200C temperature spreads into the IC and damages it. But in practice, of all hundereds of chips that I have salvaged, never did I have an incident where the extracted component failed my tests. As a matter of fact they all worked perfectly (even the ones I removed late from the heat). The common maximum storage temperatures (uniform) suggested by manufacturers lie between about 150C and 180C (as far as I have seen), so a temperature a bit above that shouldn't be a problem.

See the above video.

Safety precautions of course apply. We are dealing with hot temperatures, potential toxic smoke and the possibility of hot molten tin spits. So use of gloves, mask and goggles is advised.

Hope you have found this useful, I certainly have since now I have a ton-load of components in stock. So much that I'll never use most of those dinosaurs in my lifetime.